What you can - and cannot do - with your software is often determined by the code owner's license. From not using open source APIs with closed-source digital rights management (DRM) to being barred from fiddling with Windows source code, we've seen it all.
Or have we?
Joining the open source and commercial melee is a document …

Another article that misses the mark

Whatever this license might be, it most definitely isn't an open source license. The Open Source Definition has at least two clauses (no discrimination against persons or groups, and no discrimination against fields of endeavor) that are. at least according to the article, are violated. Similarly, the Four Freedoms include the right for anyone to run the software, again violated, according to the article, by this license.

I do wish the article's author had been a bit more careful about using the term `open source' for something that is nothing of the kind.

Question..

I am curious, but not so curious to read through all the available licensing options with my IANALButILikeToPretendIAm hat on, but if i were to get to the download section without saying I agree to the terms of use (say, for example, I was using a browser with broken JS or CSS support, such as notepad.exe, or i went straight to the download url) and I used the software in accordance with the commercial or lgpl license as documented on their website, have I actually violated anything?

wow.

Well, it's their license, so I guess they get to say what they want.

I hope all five of them have fun using the software. Actually, looking at the restrictions in a bit more detail with a legalistic eye, I'm unsure that anyone alive in a "modern" western nation could claim to be able to follow the license restrictions to their full extent without at least some wilful hypocrisy.

Clinching proof...

It's also GPL'd?

If you take a look at the google code project page (http://code.google.com/p/exttld/) it says on the front page that it's released under the GPL. IANAL, and I have no idea what the GPL's position on this is, but can you apply extra conditions to a piece of code (like they have done) and still claim that it is under the GPL? Obviously their copyright, their rules, but one would think that by licensing something under the GPL, you lose the right to dictate who can and can't use your software.

It is pointless...

The code is covered by GPLv3.

Section 8 of GPLv3 includes the following:

"All other non-permissive additional terms* are considered “further restrictions” within the meaning of section 10. If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term."

* It lists some very specific additions you may make.

Section 10 of GPLv3 includes:

"You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License."

Restrictions only apply to downloading?

"By downloading ExtTLD from this website, you agree to the following terms and conditions."

Which suggests the additional terms only apply to whoever downloads the code from that site- they're the copyright holders so they're allowed to do this. However, since the actual code is LGPL once it's been given to someone they're free to distribute it without the additional restrictions.

This isn't new.

This isn't at all new. Around 1994 I encountered a package which granted a free licence to anyone except for members of the Nevada state legislature and their immediate family members for whom a $50000 licence fee was payable.

Reading between the lines the author was a university student resident in Nevada who didn't at all like the state education policies.

@Vincent Manis

Contrary to increasingly popular belief, Stallman & Co. did _NOT_ invent the concept of opening up the source code to one's applications. I regret to inform you that "Open Source" is not a f*cking registered trademark.

@Sean Baggaley

@Sean Baggaley

1. The Open Source Definition is not the work of Richard Stallman or the FSF, who overall does not like the phrase.

2. The non-discrimination clauses I quoted come from the Open Source Definition, which is published by the Open Source Initiative.

3. When Microsoft developed licenses that they considered to be open-source (note lower case), they submitted them to the OSI for approval.

4. The Wikipedia article on open source cites a reference ([6]) from 1990 that shows the term to be used to signify `materials open to the public and freely available' [my wording] and opposed implicitly to `controlled'.

5. I hope Sean would not consider a library to be public if it refused admittance to meat eaters, vegetarians, or any other group.

For the record, I have been using open-source software since about 1970, back when user groups such as SHARE (IBM) and DECUS (DEC) used to distribute it. The GNU Manifesto clearly says that RMS wanted to re-create the environment he'd experienced at the MIT AI Lab, so he can hardly have claimed to invented the concept.

Oh, dear, you've got to laugh sometimes,

Contrary to increasingly popular belief, Stallman & Co. did _NOT_ invent the concept of opening up the source code to one's applications. I regret to inform you that "Open Source" is not a f*cking registered trademark"

<sarcasm> You really don't know what you're talking about do you?</sarcasm>

Answer...

IANALBILTPIA also. Imagine that. Anyway, assuming that you did not agree to the terms of their license, you would be violating copyright. However, since it is apparent that they've actually distributed it under a GPL, and merely added those terms and conditions to the front, rather than distributing it under a modified GPL, no, you would only be violating the DMCA.

Oh, and at least one other poster might be interested to know that a trademark need not be registered, and given the recent usage of the term, 'Open Source' would almost certainly qualify for being an unregistered trademark, if it were unregistered. Now, I wouldn't be willing to bet that the term is, in fact, unregistered, also given recent usage of the term.

Now, one bit of confusion I do have, as IANAJ, and most specifically, IANTJThatThisCaseWouldGoToIfItWereTakenToTrial, and, of course, said trial hasn't happened yet, is does the fact that the author of the code is attempting to add terms to the GPL modify the effect of the attempt? If that detail doesn't modify the attempt, then, as someone said above, the additional restrictions simply fall off. If it doesn't, then, well, as someone else above mentioned, none of us use it, because humans are animals, and we therefore all produce various animal products - whether software, cars, noxious gasses, or other...